When we have left the highest part of Wether Fell, we find the track taking a perfectly straight line between stone walls. The straightness is so unusual that there can be little doubt that it is a survival of one of the Roman ways connecting their station on Brough Hill, just above the village of Bainbridge, with some place to the south-west. The track goes right over Cam Fell, and is known as the Old Cam Road, but I cannot recommend it for any but pedestrians. When we have descended only a short distance, there is a sudden view of Semmerwater, the only piece of water in Yorkshire that really deserves to be called a lake. It is a pleasant surprise to discover this placid patch of blue lying among the hills, and partially hidden by a fellside in such a way that its area might be far greater than 105 acres. Those who know Turner’s painting of this lake would be disappointed, no doubt, if they saw it first from this height. The picture was made at the edge of the water with the Carlow Stone in the foreground, and over the mountains on the southern shore appears a sky that would make the dullest potato-field thrilling.
A short distance lower down, by straying a little from the road, we get a really imposing view of Bardale, into which the ground falls suddenly from our very feet. Sheep scamper nimbly down their convenient little tracks, but there are places where water that overflows from the pools among the bent and ling has made blue-gray seams and wrinkles in the steep places that give no foothold even to the toughest sheep. Raydale and Cragdale also send down becks that join with Bardale Beck just before they enter Semmerwater. Just now the three glens are particularly imposing, for some of the big clouds that have been sweeping across the heavens all day are massing themselves on the edges of the heights, and by eclipsing themselves have assumed an angry indigo hue that makes the scene almost Scottish.
Perhaps it is because Yorkshire folk are so unused to the sight of lakes that both Semmerwater and Gormire, near Thirsk, have similar legends connected with their miraculous origin. Where the water now covers the land, says the story, there used to stand a small town, and to it there once came an angel disguised as a poor and ill-clad beggar. The old man slowly made his way along the street from one house to another asking for food, but at each door he met with the same blank refusal. He went on, therefore, until he came to a poor little cottage outside the town. Although the couple who lived there were almost as old and as poor as himself, the beggar asked for something to eat as he had done at the other houses. The old folk at once asked him in, and, giving him bread, milk, and cheese, urged him to pass the night under their roof. Then in the morning, when the old man was about to take his departure, came the awful doom upon the inhospitable town, for the beggar held up his hands, and said:
‘Semmerwater, rise! Semerwater, sink!
And swallow the town, all save this house,
Where they gave me meat and drink.’
Of course, the waters obeyed the disguised angel; and, for proof, have we not the existence of the lake, and is there not also pointed out an ancient little cottage standing alone at the lower end of the lake?
We lose sight of Semmerwater behind the ridge that forms one side of the branch dale in which it lies, but in exchange we get beautiful views of the sweeping contours of Wensleydale. High upon the further side of the valley Askrigg’s gray roofs and pretty church stand out against a steep fellside; further down we can see Nappa Hall, surrounded by trees, just above the winding river, and Bainbridge lies close at hand. We soon come to the broad and cheerful green, surrounded by a picturesque scattering of old but well preserved cottages; for Bainbridge has sufficient charms to make it a pleasant inland resort for holiday times that is quite ideal for those who are content to abandon the sea. The overflow from Semmerwater, which is called the Bain, fills the village with its music as it falls over ledges of rock in many cascades along one side of the green. There is a steep bridge, which is conveniently placed for watching the waterfalls; there are white geese always drilling on the grass, and there are still to be seen the upright stones of the stocks. The pretty inn called the ‘Rose and Crown,’ overlooking a corner of the green, states upon a board that it was established in 1445. This date at one time appeared in raised letters upon a stone over the doorway, which, Mr. Speight tells us, ‘had formerly a good Norman arch.’ Anything of that period would, of course, carry the origin of the building back some centuries earlier than the year claimed for the establishment of the inn. The great age of the village, owing to its existence in Roman times, as well as the importance it gained through being not only situated at important cross-roads, but also on the edge of the forest of Wensleydale, would account for the early establishment of some sort of hostelry for the entertainment of travellers. Even at the present day a horn-blowing custom has been preserved at Bainbridge. It takes place at ten o’clock every night between Holy Rood (September 27) and Shrovetide, but somehow the reason for the observance has been forgotten. The medieval regulations as to the carrying of horns by foresters and those who passed through forests would undoubtedly associate the custom with early times, and this happy old village certainly gains our respect for having preserved anything from such a remote period. When we reach Bolton Castle we shall find in the museum there an old horn from Bainbridge.
Besides having the length and breadth of Wensleydale to explore with or without the assistance of the railway, Bainbridge has as its particular possession the valley containing Semmerwater, with the three romantic dales at its head. Counterside, a hamlet perched a little above the lake, has an old hall, where George Fox stayed in 1677 as a guest of Richard Robinson. The inn bears the date 1667 and the initials ‘B. H. J.,’ which may be those of one of the Jacksons, who were Quakers at that time.
On the other side of the river, and scarcely more than a mile from Bainbridge, is the little town of Askrigg, which supplies its neighbour with a church and a railway-station. There is a charm in its breezy situation that is ever present, for even when we are in the narrow little street that curves steeply up the hill there are peeps of the dale that are quite exhilarating. The square-topped Addlebrough is separated from us by a great airy space, and looking up and down the broad dale which widens eastwards and becomes narrower and more rugged to the west, there appears to be a vastness lying around us which no plain can suggest. We can see Wether Fell, with the road we traversed yesterday plainly marked on the slopes, and down below, where the Ure takes its way through bright pastures, there is a mist of smoke ascending from Hawes. Blocking up the head of the dale are the spurs of Dodd and Widdale Fells, while beyond them appears the blue summit of Bow Fell. We find it hard to keep our eyes away from the distant mountains, which fascinate one by appearing to have an importance that is perhaps diminished when they are close at hand. All the big clouds that yesterday could scarcely hold up their showers for the shortest intervals have disappeared; perhaps they have now reached the river in liquid form, and are sparkling in the sunshine that now comes, without interruption, from their spotless cenotaph. We will follow Shelley’s metaphor no further, for there is water enough everywhere to fill the dales with all the roarings and murmurings that the forces and gills can supply, and we would gladly forget the cloud’s ‘silent laugh’ as it begins to unbuild the blue dome of heaven.
We find ourselves halting on a patch of grass by the restored market-cross to look more closely at a fine old house overlooking the three-sided space. There is no doubt as to the date of the building, for a plain inscription begins ‘Gulielmus Thornton posuit hanc domum MDCLXXVIII.’ The bay windows, as may be seen in the illustration, have heavy mullions and transoms, and there is a dignity about the house which must have been still more apparent when the surrounding houses were lower than at present. The wooden gallery that is constructed between the bays was, it is said, built as a convenient place for watching the bull-fights that took place just below. In the grass there can still be seen the stone to which the bull-ring was secured. The churchyard runs along the west side of the little market-place, so